What frequency is your walkie talkie using to transmit and receive. You might he wanting to find out what frequency they use so that you can tap into them or so that you can intercept other walkie talkies or maybe you are programming your walkie talkie, keep reading.

What frequency are walkie talkies using?

Most walkie talkies are FRS type walkie talkie or Family Radio Service radio, these two-way radios use between 462 and 467 MHz UHF band.

CB Radios on the other hand uses 27 MHz, there are two types of bands which walkie talkies may fall under, its either UHF or VHF band walkie talkie.

UHF uses 462 and 467 MHz

VHF uses 300 MHz – 3 GHz

Why are walkie talkies still used?

Since the introduction of mobile phones, walkie talkies have not gone obsolete, they are still popular in various places or applications.

Here are a few reasons why walkie talkies are still being used.

They are cheap to use

You don’t have to buy airtime like you do for mobile phones, when you make a call on your mobile phone, you will need to have credit. Take for an example, a security officer, the officer needs to be on their walkie talkies for the whole duration of their shifts, if he/she is going to use a mobile phone, it’s going to cost him hundreds of dollars a shift, hence the need for walkie talkies.

They don’t require cell phone towers

Should there be no electricity or if the cell phone towers go down, walkie talkies can still be used, it’s a very useful tool to have during emergency situations since they don’t rely on repeaters.

If one day, we wake up and civilization is no more, with just a solar panel and walkie talkie and we are good to go in terms communications for several years, because all they need is electricity, although you can use a repeater with it.           

 Why are walkie talkies called walkie talkies?                     

During the war, Motorolla used to sell walkie talkies which were used during the war and they called them handie- talkies, since they are for talking and are also handy. After the war, left over devices were sold off to the general public. The public then called them walkie talkies.

How to make a real walkie talkie

Walkie talkies are fascinating, aren’t they? I as a child used to be fascinated with them, I had a cheap 27 MHZ 50 meters line of sight cheap walkie talkie, after some times, I wanted my walkie talkie to have a longer range, I opened it up thinking that maybe I could change the components inside to make them work at a longer/farther distance than fifty meters.

I searched on Youtube and saw a few people making their own walkie talkies. And have since then, done a few small electronic projects.

Now, to make your own walkie talkie, you will need to have the following skills, read and interpret circuit diagrams, basic understanding of electronics, make circuit boards, able to use electronic tools and most important of all, know how to solder

You will need a circuit diagram, preferably a simple one with a few components, you will have to gather the components and solder them up.

Below is a video for making walkie talkie. Word of advice; if you’re attempting electronic projects like these, its important that you start off with easy projects to help you gain the basic skills and confidence which you will then use later on to attempt harder projects, electronics can be frustrating when done wrong. (a walkie talkie is technically a radio transmitter)

You could start off with these simple circuit two-way radio and build your skills from there, this could potentially be a hobby of yours.